Innovation culture necessary for success

Last week I attended the Fourth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX) held in the Yarra Valley, Victoria.

The workshop drew academics and a few researchers from industry from around the world to discuss topics ranging from the practice of algorithms for image and video processing techniques, audio modelling and 3D technology, to debates about multimedia standards and the ability of quantifying user experience.

The camaraderie was warm and strong. These were experts in their fields able to share knowledge, talk about their research and socialise with their peers. I was in geek heaven.

It didn’t take long to notice though that there was strong representation among the delegates from the EU especially German and Scandinavian institutions. Noticeably absent was the North American and Australian communities. It was clear that the current financial environment has hit academic travel budgets. What was interesting is that the European academics I talked with said that they had to scrape and fight for the funds to attend, but that they were committed to the importance of gatherings like this to grow the community, to socialise the research and to act as witness and support for new academics releasing their papers at the event.

There was a certain solidarity with the absent community and acknowledgement that times were tough and research communities and labs were just as affected by the doom and gloom of the economic climate. A sentiment that came through from the EU delegates was that they have gotten used to doing more with less.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) recently released by the UN World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) showed the North America ranking has slid to 10th, while the northern European countries have faired very well. The top five nations being Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, Finland and the UK.

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Australia was ranked 23rd globally, 5th in the region while New Zealand was ranked 13th and 3rd. Well played, New Zealand. In the GII versus GDP per capita chart (Figure 4 in the report), Australia was still in the Leaders cluster (but only just) and was categorised as “inefficient innovator”.

The report constantly references the theme of "innovation linkages" or the interaction between private firms, the public sector, academia and society. Talent, access to capital and other incentives are the inputs with intellectual property, products and services being the output. The more efficient the interaction between the innovation "actors" the larger the output. The report tries to show that it is not always the size of the economies that makes the difference for innovation, rather the lower the friction in the links between industry, government, research communities and society, the more velocity innovation gets.

In Australia, we clearly have great talent and world-class research but that isn’t flowing through to commercial opportunities domestically. For the second year in a row, such reports rate Australia as very capable, praises the Federal Government for its expenditure on domestic R&D programs, yet these positives fail to translate into the results expected. The emphasis has been on putting money into the creation of IP, maybe it is time we focus on what is blocking adoption of the research?

Anecdotally, my experience at QoMEX put the WIPO rankings into some perspective. There was definitely a fighting spirit among the Northern European contingent. It seems the more that is taken away from them, the more they will find a way around through collaboration. Lack of funding is not an automatic showstopper to their research. I admire the resilience and resistance demonstrated by the delegates.

I was curious as to why the Australian attendance at the event was relatively poor, I know of several Australian universities that are working in this area whose delegates did not attended. Whether is was a factor of travel budgets, the workshop format itself or that they had nothing to show, I’m not really sure, but it was a shame not to have them join in the collaboration.

A line from the report leapt out at me and serves as a warning to Australia: "Research and development and innovation expenditures cannot often be stopped and subsequently picked up again simply when the economy recovers". Waiting for the economy to recover to kickstart innovation is not really a solution if during the time of suppressed expenditure things change such as the talent leaves or has its skills atrophied, R&D start-ups fail but their IP is bought in fire sales by multinational conglomerates; or our domestic businesses become too accustomed to relying on foreign products to solve their problems. When the money begins to flow again, will we have the culture (or innovation linkages) to effectively turn research into wealth-creating products and services?

My take-home message from QoMEX and the Global Innovation Index is that promoting innovation shouldn’t be about distributing bundles of money into institutional silos. Equally as important is removing friction and encouraging deeper interactions and community. Innovation is not the sole responsibility of academia or government or business. Innovative research reaches its full potential when we all engage with it.